Pages

Thursday, November 19, 2009

He sits behind his desk. The rain patters against the window as the streetlights outside create white squares with black shadows that flow sinuously down. He pours another shot out of the brown bottle of liquor. The lights are off. His hand appears pale white as it gently picks up the glass by the rim. He downs the liquid, maneuvering his hand artfully out of the way of his nose as he tips the glass into his expectant mouth. The sound of his swallow stands out against the consistent, erratic rain that beats down on the building. He sets the glass down in front of him. The empty glass now appearing slightly white against the grey, lightless desk. With his other hand he grasps the bottle. Snow over muddy water. He rests his hand there and remains motionless for an instant. A noise beyond the door. His free hand instinctively goes to the top right drawer to grasp the .45 millimeter. Caught between the sickening brown bottle and the horrifying metallic-silver gun. His arms are locked in place. He is vulnerable down the middle because he is divided. He waits. Quietly, darkly without reflecting a lumen of emotion. A dark shadow eliminates the word "detective" spelled backwards. His hands are ready. The air around him feels like water. Blue, dark, endless, smothering. The water becomes still. Suddenly, the room becomes a torrent and the atmosphere is violently upheaved by the opening of the door. His finger on the trigger, he doesn't need to wait to breathe.

"Bad time?" Rex Murphey says as he pokes his head through the door. His face stands out against the bluish-grey of the wall behind him and the ebony of his shadow behind the window in the office door. His face appears slightly illuminated. It acts like a lighthouse. It begins to burn out all other things in the room due to its radiance. He almost has to squint. He eases his grip on the .45 but not on the bottle.

"Yeah, it is" he says.

"Should I come back?" Rex asks with a twinge of pain in his voice.

"Yeah. Come back tomorrow" the words are almost smoke that billow out of his mouth. He is barely visible from across the room.

"Okay. I'll come back tomorrow then" Rex closes the door and it nearly causes his head to explode from the cacophony it creates. When the violating noise subsides he is left alone.

The rain continues to drum its steady, yet unpredictable beat against the window. Creating black shadows that compete for mediocrity with the whites and grays that occupy the room scape.

"Rex, you asshole" he thinks, "I was just starting to get ready for something good there".

He releases the gun and removes his hand from the top right drawer. The bottle retains its companion. He uses his other hand to pour himself another shot. The tinkle of liquid into glass ever so slightly disrupts the harmony of the room. The brown ever so slightly draws attention to itself in the midst of the forgetful background.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

My back really hurt today. Maybe it's from the weight of almost 50 people that seems to just not get lifted off of it. Or maybe it's because I slept funny, who knows? What I do know is that I am getting into a routine and I kind of dig it. The seemingly mundane work-week is kind of relaxing because I know exactly what I will be doing and where I will be at most hours of the day. My sleeping cycle is regulated and I feel good with myself for being productive even when I don't do anything when I get home. I am feeling more and more that my career can be left at the "office" for the most part with minimal outsourcing of work into my private life. There is the occasional onslaught of marking to do but buckling down and getting it done seems to be the best bet so that I can enjoy weekends of doing nothing.

Planning is not much of a concern due to the overwhelming abundance of resources that have been made available to me. That and the courses are not even in the same galaxy as Difficult. However, one course requires the participation and cooperation of around 20 people going through, finishing or maybe even starting (sometimes their voices sound like they are cracking and I hope they don't notice my eyebrow arcing every time it happens) puberty. So thats obviously seems like it would be this but at times it isn't. At other times (most of the time) it is. So that makes me wonder as to just what exactly it was that I was smoking when I decided to get into this line of work. But the prep isn't hard, which is nice.

I have officially been doing it longer then I ever have before and it is scary but comforting and I worry about it because I don't want to get burned somewhere down the road. I make a mistake now and it goes unnoticed until months later when I can no longer rely upon my proverbial parachute of, "It's my first month". The plane that is my career will have been airborne for just long enough to make any emergency exits unnecessary and I will be fully accountable for anything that goes wrong. Usually they can just sum it up to "mechanical errors" but once that black box gets all the flight info and is recovered then I am no better off than those pilots who got booked for Tweeting, "Dude te sky rox!" and "@Horny_Burger9967, FUCK U BRO!!!!11! psky Captan fuk u up!"

Except my "tweets" will be neither eloquent nor tactful when they are discovered. They will bear the brand of shame that will forever weigh me down until I change my name/sex and move to Bobcaygeon/Amsterdam.

That fear isn't really helping either. The fear that the smallest, most innocent falter in my judgement could potentially lead to years in exile is just the slightest bit unnerving. Now I know how the doctors at Seattle Grace Hospital feel. Their careers hinge on something as trivial as a flick of the wrist or a sleight of hand. The same acts apply for my profession but in much, much different contexts and anatomical localities.

However, as much as I feel like a surgeon on some days; on others I feel like I am a surgery patient. I feel as though I am being operated on by almost 50 inexperienced, immature and impish McDreamys. They cut away at me until I am exposed to my core and then they play around with what's inside. My natural reflex is to tense up to not let them penetrate deeper but sometimes that just hurts more.